Why would you want to convert the MPEG2 file to AVI?....just to edit it?
Will the image quality be affected at all?

thanks

The image quality won’t improve. What you are trying to do is keep the image quality from degrading as you edit. Here’s why:

DV AVI files use 5:1 compression and contain full frames of video while MPEG2 files use 20:1 compression (I think?) and contain some full frames (I-frames), some partial delta frames (B-frames) and some predicted frames (P-Frames). The problem is, you want to see a full frame when you edit so when you edit an MPEG2 file, your NLE has to reconstruct the frame for you to edit (from I,B,P frames) and then re-encode several frames because now that you changed one, the delta and predictive information must also change. So editing MPEG2 does more re-compressing of frames because of its I,B,P-frame structure and it does this at a much higher compression rate than DV.

That’s why most people suggest that if you are going to do anything more than add some titles and cut out a few scenes, you may get better quality in the end, if you render to DV AVI and do all your editing in a format so that you loose less quality.

~jr

thanks jr,

Hmmm. I have done a fair amount of editing (cutting) in MS3.0 from MPEG2 files. I tend to capture in about 10-15 minutes segments (~800MB) then edit each (in MPEG2) and them add the edited segments in one continuous MS file.

The plan was to do this to fill a DVD with the final, full length file.

I guess I should go back and discard all the edited files and start by converting the captured MPEG2 segments into AVI (using MS3.0?) and then edit, add the segments together and then render into a DVD...yes?

Thanks,
Allen

Thanks for your response. MS3 sounds like it's what I'm looking for. The web site was pretty clear about adding transitions, etc, but it wasn't so clear to me about cutting out scenes, etc. Thanks for clearing it up.

I don't know that I'll be using MyDVD, although I do have it. I still like Dazzle's DVD Complete that I've used in the past. It makes nice looking menus and jewel case inserts. I've never had to edit in the past because I usually do a good enough job of filming that I don't need to cut stuff out. But with a baby on the way, I think that will become more difficult.

Thanks again.

> start by converting the captured MPEG2 segments into AVI

Why are you capturing to MPEG-2? You should be capturing to DV-AVI, then you are set to edit without degrading the quality.
Yes, capturing to DV-AVI results in MUCH larger files, but that's goes with the territory if you want high quality results. From what I have heard, if you are going to do any editing at all, even simple trims, you do NOT want to capture to MPEG-2. If you do, when you go to render and burn the video to DVD, you will compress again per the MPEG-2 spec. This will obviously happen if you convert to AVI in MS3, but it will also happen even if you stay with MPEG-2, because even the slighest trim will cause a re-render.

Great point, but my PC will not capture in anything other than MPEG2. I am also capturing from VHS and 8 mm analog tapes, so the quality will not be ideal in any case...yes?

Does it still make sense to convert to AVI? edit, then render back to MPEG2?